


By Any Other Name

by grumkin_snark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 22:24:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13109724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumkin_snark/pseuds/grumkin_snark
Summary: Leonette doesn't expect much from her marriage, or her betrothed; she knows the ways of the world, and the men in it.Then again, none of those men are Garlan Tyrell.





	By Any Other Name

**Author's Note:**

> For Mari.

Her wedding day has come upon her at last, and she wants to feel what all the songs tell her she should, to feel joyous and giddy and demure and proud. She  _wants_  to feel that, but she doesn’t. All she feels is fear. Fear and uncertainty, fear and dread. The songs say one thing, but she knows the songs lie more than they tell the truth.

All her life, she’s been warned that love is not the way of the world. She will marry a man she does not love, a man who may well be old enough to be her father. She will be sold off like chattel, her home, her family, her very  _name_  ripped from her as though she never existed. She is a Fossoway only because she has not yet wed, she will be a Fossoway only  _until_  she is wed.

Her mother isn’t a particularly warm woman, but no one can say she minces words. Leonette had learned that long ago, too.

Her betrothed flashes into her mind as he so often has over the last year. His laughing brown eyes, the soft curl of his hair that somehow always falls just-so, the way his hand felt on her back when they dance, the displeasure she endures when he talks to other maidens.

He is a marvel, Garlan Tyrell, in form, shape, and cadence, and he is to be hers before the sun sets.

Yet, in spite of all his charms, her mother’s warnings are ingrained in her like gnarled thorns. His handsomeness will expire as he ages, his generosity will fade the first time he goes to war, his gallantry is nothing more than a show, his interest in her goes only so far as her cunt, that as soon as she’s with child, he’d go off and find someone younger, prettier.

She wants to be a blushing bride, but it’s those warnings that stop her short. After all, she is but eight-and-ten, what does she know of love? Her parents have never had such a thing, she’s known that for as long as she can remember. In fact, precious few women that she’s ever met seem to feel any affection for their husbands. Garlan certainly does not lack for attention from women, and there is nothing to stop him from accepting their propositions. Certainly not  _her_. It is not her right to keep him to her bed.

The worries do not abate; nor does time, and before Leonette knows it, her maiden’s cloak is clasped at her breastbone and she is being ushered into Highgarden’s magnificent sept. Gilded roses climb the walls and the sunshine through the cut glass windows send a thousand rainbows skittering across the hall.

And, perhaps most magnificent of all, Garlan stands at the end of the aisle, dressed so impeccably that Leonette has to wonder quite how many dragons were spent on him alone. Gods know her own dress had been of exorbitant cost–she would be marrying a Tyrell, her mother said, and there would be no gossip this day of how a Fossoway had looked inadequate.

On Garlan’s face she expects to see…well, she doesn’t quite know, but  _anxiety_  is certainly not it. Oh, he is in fine form, as ever, yet he’s jittery in a way she’s not glimpsed before.

As the septon requests silence from the guests, Leonette takes the moment to whisper, “Are you all right?”

“Shall you think less of me if I confess to nerves?” he whispers back.

“You’re nervous?” she giggles. “Whatever for?”

He tries to answer, but the septon starts the proceedings. She says her part, miraculously not stumbling upon her words once, and then they kiss, and though it’s ever so brief, she finds herself wanting more. Much,  _much_  more.

 _And I can_ , she reminds herself. _In but a few hours’ time, I will._

It isn’t until halfway through the feast that she finally seizes the opportunity to ask him again what he’d meant earlier. His cheeks are flushed with wine and warmth, and he gives a rather ungainly shrug.

“Well,  _you_  make me nervous. I feel like half a boy around you, never sure what to say. I always have.” He takes her hand and places it on his chest; his heartbeat is quick as a rabbit’s. “See?”

“ _I_  make you nervous?” she asks, stunned. “You’re the victor of a hundred tourneys, a knight the Warrior would admire, and handsome besides. I’m only Nettie Fossoway, how could  _I_ make you nervous?”

He smiles at her, and she realizes with a start that out of all the maidens and serving girls he’d spoken with, he’d never given them  _this_  smile. “How indeed?”

She flushes from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes, and in an instant she feels all her fears snap apart like rusted chains. Her mother is wrong, she’s  _wrong_ , and Leonette only wishes she’d refused to listen to her in the first place.

She links her fingers with his and never lets go.


End file.
